I am proud to announce that in partnership with Eagle Games, we are ready to launch the Dawn – Rise of the Occulites Kickstarter this Wednesday 19th June at 9pm US EST

I will post the link to the KS here when it launches, but until then, please spread the word!

The full base rulebook will be available to download on launch, so you will be able to properly evaluate whether or not this is the game for you. It is a huge box, with lots of components. You will have the option to purchase the game with coloured plastic figures or with pre-paints if you so choose.

We also have some very cool stretch goals and add ons to help immerse you in the Occulite world. We are very excited to finally share the game with you all.

This has been in development for almost 7 years and it is exciting that after all the tweaks, modifications, additions, subtractions rewrites, blood, sweat and tears I’ve put into it, it finally comes to fruition. A very rewarding experience.

Rise of the Occulites Saga

The Rise of the Occulites Saga is a series of games that I have designed under my company Darwin Games that explore both the natural and social evolution of a species of creatures called “Occulites”.

These creatures are discovered by a small boy living with his Pa in the Australian Bush, but they are not of our world. This boy, Darwin, can observe and learn about them through “windows in space” which appear to occur naturally throughout his Pa’s property. The Occulites’ world has been named Crepusculum and is a world that evolves and changes very quickly. In the space of several generations, the Occulites evolve from a small Tribal existence, through to full civilizations, with trade, war and diplomacy.

The first game in the Saga has been picked up by Eagle Games (www.eaglegames.net) and will go on Kickstarter in early 2013. This game is called “Dawn – Rise of the Occulites” and is based around small skirmish actions of family Tribes consisting of four members and a Chief. The game utilises something called the “Natural Selection Deck” which helps to determine everything from movement, combat, terrain outcomes and other things within the game. The careful use of these multi-purpose cards is vital in achieving your goals and objectives within the game and introduces many important choices that do matter. To give you an idea of some of the gameplay concepts I have included some video links below:

Gameplay concepts – Episode One

Full Game playthrough of Basic Rules – Video quality a bit off, but you get the idea.

I have added a new page to my blog that will detail the current state and all the files for the Battlelore with Blocks Project. You will be able to download block stickers for the existing units and creatures (as I get them done) as well as new races and block stickers for them. The first new race being testing is still the Lizardmen.

The idea is to make the new races more accessible for everyone by using blocks instead of figures (like in C&C:A and C&C:N) Not everyone paints their figures (as its a boardgame), so this way it makes it easier to introduce the new races.

The Botanicals Background Info

Children knew of the walking trees, the Botanicals. Everyone did, for they were part of a bedtime story told to every child across the land. In this story, when the water dried up in the great forest, the trees lifted their roots from the ground and marched – for hours, days and weeks to find more water. Upon coming to a village that had dammed the river’s flow, they quickly and effectively levelled the town and destroyed the dam, before marching back to the forest. This story told of how the people of the world had to live with nature and not deny it – for it would always find a way.

But the Botanicals were fiction. No one had ever actually seen this happen. It was merely a fairy tale… wasn’t it?

For many years, the trees and plants that adorned the stadium gardens across world, watched in silence. They sheltered the fans… waiting… learning, until one day when a stray basketball (kicked away by an overzealous beastmen player) landed in the canopy of a great tree. Before the players or fans knew what was happening, there was a great rumbling and the tree pulled its roots from the ground and strode onto the court, demanding a match.

In disbelief, the beastmen team accepted, only to be beaten soundly by the tree and his fellow plantmen. They had found a way. So began the Botanicals Nuthin’ But Net tournament campaign.